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Economic Security

As we consider the quickly approaching future in which women are predicted to be the primary breadwinners in most households, African-American women have something unique to add to discussion as well—they’ve been living that “future” for a long time already.

Though obvious on its face, the point bears occasional repetition: When we speak of “women” in the feminist blogscape, we are often talking about a specific demographic profile; usually white, straight, middle-class and somewhat liberal. But in reality, of course, women are a far more diverse bunch, with a diversity of experience and perspective to match. As Amanda Marcotte and Libby Copeland have discussed here recently (in response to comments made by S.C. Governor Nikki Haley), conservative women see the contraception debate and the “War on Women” in general from a very different point of view than we might expect. And, as we consider the quickly approaching future in whichwomen are predicted to be the primary breadwinners in most households, African-American women have something unique to add to discussion as well—they’ve been living that “future” for a long time already.

According to a post by Zerlina Maxwell that’s making the rounds, Black women are already the “lifeblood” of their families in a community hard hit by the recession and in which men face added, often racist, obstacles to employment. The American Prospect had a piece back in 2008 exploring the issue, and the findings support Maxwell’s point:

Because of the limited economic prospects for black men, black women are likely to be both primary caregivers and primary breadwinners in our families. In nearly 44 percent of black families with children, a woman is the primary breadwinner. This includes both families headed by working single mothers and married-couple families in which the wife works and the husband does not. These female breadwinner families account for over 32 percent of aggregate black family income.

Two economists envision a scary -- and scarily realistic -- future where the working population expands slower and slower, and jobless recoveries are the only recoveries we know

Editorial:

In the future, U.S. growth will be slower. Recessions will be deeper. Recoveries will be weaker. And there's exactly one thing to blame.

Demographics.

That's the stark conclusion from James Stock and Mark Watson in this fascinating, and occasionally depressing, new paper. In fact, they say, the future is now. For the last few years, we've weathered the beginning of what demographers have called the grey tsunami. "Most of the slow recovery [in today's job market] is attributable to a long-term slowdown in trend employment growth," Stock and Watson write.

The authors blame two demographic demons for our uncertain future: (1) the plateau in the female labor force participation rate, and (2) the aging of the U.S. workforce. Their underlying logic is that without continued growth in female workers or a significant boost in population, employment and GDP growth will slow, leaving us vulnerable to recessions with "steeper declines and slower recoveries." In such a future, jobless recoveries will be the only recoveries we know.

Demographic Demon #1WOMEN'S PARTICIPATION RATE

In the first half of the 20th century, female employment wasn't exactly a high-priority concern for policy makers. For the first 20 years of the century, women didn't have the right to vote. For the next 30 years, they barely made up a fifth of the labor force. Then everything changed.

The ascendance of women in the workforce was perhaps the singular cultural/economic triumph of the second half of the 20th century. In 1960, just four in ten working-age women were active in the labor force. By 1990, it was more like six in ten (see graph below of female participation rates). By 2010, women made up a majority of the workforce. But that growth appears to have hit a ceiling. The female participation rate in early 2011 was the same as in 1994. In that time, the male participation has fallen. That's not good news for a country that will require more workers to both grow the national pot of money and provide for an aging population transitioning out of the workplace.

A new analysis of US Census Bureau data performed by Wider Opportunities for Women (WOW) finds that 52% of elder-onlyhouseholds report incomes that do not cover basic, daily expenses. While the threat of economic insecurity affects elders of all backgrounds, it varies substantially by gender, race, age, household composition and other demographic characteristics. In order to assess the economic security of today's older adults, WOW compared 2010 incomes for elders who live alone or with a partner to the US Elder Economic Security Standard™ Index for their household compositions and housing statuses. The Doing Without series presents findings from this analysis.

The rich are different than you and me, and here’s one more bit of evidence that Adam Davidsonrecently dug up in the New York Times Magazine: the 1% is shelling out hundreds of thousands of dollars for childcare. He spoke with an elite nanny agency, plus some of these high-end nannies themselves, and discovered at least one making $180,000 a year plus an apartment and bonuses. Yet nannies making six figures are quite an exception to the low pay that is the norm for childcare workers.

Some memes have to be popped after they’ve already taken on steam, but sometimes we can get out in front of them. For one might be led to think that New Yorkers are paying top dollar to compensate their live-in childcare workers lavishly. It made Derek Thompson wonder, “How in the world can Manhattan nannies be worth $200,000 a year?” His answer is that there is a “Nanny Effect” to locally delivered services such as childcare. Because “most of the jobs in a service economy have a local clientele,” he says, “in cities where incomes are high, average price levels for these services are typically high.” Anyone who’s walked into a hair salon on the Upper West Side for a cheap cut will understand this phenomenon.

But the tale of the $200,000 nanny is an incredibly niche story. For the 99% of nannies, pay is actually quite low given the important work they do. In a2011 survey of 528 nannies across the country, the most common answer to an inquiry about how much they bring in pre-tax per week was $600. The second most common? A mere $300 or less per week. And things don’t get much better even in high-priced New York City. Live-in nannies, like the aforementioned $200,000 one, make an average of $713 a week, which comes to $37,076 a year. Even in posh Park Slope, home of high-priced strollers and children’s clothes that cost more than my nicest suit, on the books nannies earn $16.41 an hour. For those working 50 hours a week, that comes to just $42,666 a year.

In mid-February, Obama took less than half of the vote from women under 50 years old. Now he wins more than 60 percent of them. (Obama is ahead of Romney among all women by 18 points.)

Cillizza and Blake point to the contraception debacle of recent weeks as the primary cause of the shift:

That rapid consolidation of women behind Obama seems directly attributable to the focus in the Republican presidential primary on contraception and other reproductive rights issues during the past six weeks or so.

Well, maybe. Up to a point.

But Republicans will make a grave mistake if they persuade themselves that it's social issues that most strongly motivate women voters.

There is no significant gender gap at all on abortion, for example, according to Pew Research.

No, men and women are divided on economic issues. (Also on issues of war and peace, but that is less pertinent today.) To simplify: American men (and especially white men) respond positively to the language of economic individualism. American women–not so much.

Take a look at this highly detailed study of policy attitudes from Rutgers’ Center for American Women and Politics. The data are based on polls from the mid-1990s, but the realities haven’t changed much in the intervening years:

Q: “Which of these statements comes closer to your own views – even if neither is exactly right? ‘The government should do more to help needy Americans – even if it means going deeper into debt.’ Or ‘The government today can’t afford to do much more to help the needy.’”

Women have made great strides in the last 100 years, but they remain vastly underrepresented in elective office, scientific fields and the boardrooms of California. The Report on the Status of Women and Girls in California focuses on key areas crucial to the advancement of women. This is the state's first comprehensive look at key areas impacting women's lives, such as changing demographics, poverty, mental and physical health, incarceration, employment, the media and much more. It presents never-before-compiled data in a format for general use by women, legislators and community-based organizations.

On average, raises stop at age 37 for women and age 45 for men. That's according to research by PayScale.com and is based on surveys completed by about 1.5 million people who hold a bachelor's degree or higher.

The reason, explains PayScale.com lead economist Katie Bardaro, is that for many jobs, experience eventually stops improving one's productivity. "You reach a point in middle-age where there is no more learning you can do in your job," says Bardaro. As a result, you stop receiving pay increases for increased competency. (PayScale.com's figures take inflation into account; workers do receive small pay increases as they approach retirement, but they largely reflect inflation and not a real wage hike.)

There are some exceptions to this general rule: Some professions, in which experience continues to add value, continue to see salary growth. Tech-heavy jobs are one example, along with lawyers and engineers, says Bardaro. "You're constantly learning [if you're a lawyer]: How to get clients to trust you, the law, how to win cases," she adds.

In other professions, such as non-physician healthcare positions, the learning curve drops off more abruptly. For pharmacists and nurses, Bardaro says, "You learn everything you need to know to do your job in school or in the first few years of doing it, so you don't have much more to learn." Those positions tend to start off with relatively high pay but don't grow as workers get older.

The gender difference in the age at which salaries flatten is largely explained by job choice, says Bardaro. Men tend to gravitate toward jobs in which growth continues (such as engineering) while women often work in fields with flatter pay curves (such as teaching, nursing, and social work).

PolitiFact Ohio decided to focus on this simple statement about the economic plight of women.

Kaptur’s communications director Steve Fought provided PolitiFact Ohio with U.S. Census data and a National Women’s Law Center report to back up his boss’s statement.

The numbers indeed show that the poverty rate for women in the United States was 14.5 percent in 2010, which was 3.3 percentage points higher than for men.

Women also fared worse when comparisons were made within ethnic groups, such as white (non-Hispanic), black, Hispanic, Asian and native American. For instance, slightly more than 25 percent of all African-American women were in poverty in 2010, compared with 19.1 percent for African-American men.

Objectives—This report from the National Center for Health Statistics shows trends and group differences in current marital status, with a focus on first marriages among women and men aged 15–44 years in the United States. Trends and group differences in the timing and duration of first marriages are also discussed. These data are based on the 2006–2010 National Survey of Family Growth (NSFG). National estimates of probabilities of first marriage by age and probabilities of separation and divorce for women and men’s first marriages are presented by a variety of demographic characteristics. Data are compared with similar measures for 1982, 1995, and 2002.